For years, I worked in sales, marketing, and product management. Ran an ad agency, led eCommerce teams, built funnels, managed budgets, hired people, and closed deals myself. And no matter where I was, I kept running into the same problem.
Analytics was crucial, but I didn’t have an analyst on the team. And there was no budget for one either. A classic catch-22: data drives growth, but no one wanted to invest in it. So, I had to figure things out myself.
I dove into Google Tag Manager, tinkered with tracking pixels, ad platforms, databases, and dashboards. At first, out of necessity. Then, because I actually started enjoying it.
Somewhere around my 50th deep dive into reports and exports, I realized something: I was getting more energy from this than from anything else. I’d stay up way past midnight, digging through documentation, forums, LinkedIn, and Stack Overflow—loving every second of it.
Then I looked around and saw that my marketing analytics skills—especially in the Google ecosystem—were stronger than most of my peers’. Some things that seemed obvious to me were total mysteries to others.
Eventually, I went all in on analytics. Switched jobs, started consulting, speaking, and writing about it. The more I did, the more energy (and money) it brought me.
So, here’s the takeaway:
1. Do what truly excites you—the kind of thing you’d skip lunch for and stay up late doing.
2. If you’re building something, surround yourself with people just as obsessed as you. They’re the best.
If you work with GA4 to BigQuery exports, be sure to check out my SQL cheat sheet.
